Our take

Editorials

Lawmakers face a new decision that will affect your wallet: Legislators need to resolve lingering questions about the cap-and-trade program. It won’t be easy, not after legislators agreed earlier this month for the first time in two decades to raise gasoline taxes and other fees to generate $5 billion a year to pay for road maintenance and transit. The costs of cap and trade ultimately fall on us all.

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Foon Rhee: Charity begins at home, especially under President Donald Trump. With President Trump wanting to slash social program budgets to boost defense spending, donations to local charities are even more important. One of them is Meals on Wheels, which his budget director dismissed for not showing results. Riding with a volunteer might change his mind.

Take a number: $16.2 billion

President Donald Trump is targeting unfair practices to reduce the trade deficit, but in the latest Numbers Crunch, Foon Rhee notes that Trump is no longer saying that China is a currency manipulator. Instead, he’s linking a trade deal with China to help on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. What could go wrong? California’s trade deficit in February was $16.2 billion, and the state accounts for one-third of the U.S. total.

Their take

East Bay Times: One of the earmarks of a thriving nation is respect for its scientific community. Here’s how bad things are in America today: Scientists feel so under siege, they have called for a March for Science on Earth Day, April 22.

Miami Herald: One thing hasn’t changed when it comes to Haiti, the poorest nation in this hemisphere — the need for the United States to extend Temporary Protected Status to allow the more than 50,000 covered Haitians living in this country to stay. Sending them home will do far more harm to Haiti than good to the United States.

San Antonio Express-News: President Donald Trump’s border wall always has been a hare-brained idea. And, now, folly is inching up to reality. Firms in San Antonio and Texas are offering conceptual plans and are likely to be in the final bidding to build this monument to wastefulness. Congress should not appropriate a dime on this wall.

Charlotte Observer: Libertarian Gary Johnson’s campaign crumbled partly because of a couple of gaffes, but also because entrenched interests firmly stack the system against independent and third-party presidential candidates. One major example: the presidential debates, which are essentially off-limits to everyone but the Democratic and Republican nominees.

David Brooks: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo could have done many things to improve New York’s higher ed system. But on Wednesday, he signed legislation to make tuition free at New York public colleges for anybody coming from a family making no more than $100,000 a year. Unfortunately, the law will hurt actual New Yorkers.

Remembering Jack Knox

“Amid the understandable demonization caused by our new, toxic White House, let us pause and acknowledge a great public official. John T. “Jack” Knox died earlier this month at 92.” –Former Assemblyman William T. Bagley.

And finally,

The Take couldn’t help but notice the Easter weekend juxtaposition, played out on Twitter.